Owls

I carry the owls with medeep in my pocket or tuckedin the cup of my bra: they doze,bills dipped in a bib of feathers,turn janglesome if I forget theyare there when I run for the bus.They come with me to work:warm-blooded and tickly as fingers.We sit in the road, the owls and I,lost in the dwining day, the failingsun a shinicle over the town.I carry their flight over dreaminghills, hollow bones lifting and keening.They gowl for slumgullion,cagmag, fresh mice: get shiftyas we reach the back country,tear through my blouse,glide over the spinney, searching,searching -

I carry the owls with me, still,in vellum and in sepia. I carrythem on my tongue and I feed themto our children. May they carry the owlsfor us all, their darknesses, their eyes.